Friendship, Treason, and the Concept of the Ethnopolitical in China

Friendship, Treason, and the Concept of the Ethnopolitical in China
Uradyn E. Bulag< City University of New York >SummaryThis paper examines the master signifiers “Mongolian traitors” (Mengjian) and “Mongolian cadres”(Menggu Ganbu), as a pair of alterity. Mengjian is a ubiquitous term in Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
historiography of modern Inner Mongolia referring specifically to the Mongol nationalists who collaborated withJapanese, a designation different from the Chinese Nationalist appellation for the same people: Hanjian(Han-Chinese traitors). While the CCP frowned upon Mengjian, they created their own Mongol collaborators,

Menggu Ganbu (Mongolian cadres). This paper treats Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu as two categories of people,
which came into being at about the same time as they were invented, thereby opening up new possibilities foraction.
Although the two were exclusive of each other, I argue that Mongolian traitors and Mongolian cadreswere both “collaborative nationalists” due to the fact that they had to rely on an external power (be it Japan, China,
or Russia), misrecognizing their interdependency as friendship. There is a profound irony and even tragedy incollaborative nationalism. It is ironic because it violates the basic principle of nationalism as imbedded in groupsovereignty, keeping the national self from any others; be they friends or enemies. By aligning with a friendly
power, collaborative nationalists closed the front door to enemies but opened the back door to friends. The tragedyof this type of collaborative nationalism is that weaker or smaller groups often cannot independently meet theirgoals, not only because of the sheer power asymmetry with dominant others, but more importantly because theyusually subscribe to some of the best ideas humanity has produced, i.e. civilization, equality, fraternity, humanrights, nondiscrimination—ideas that transcend national boundaries. Moral contentions arose when the Mongols
did not agree on who should be their “friends”, especially when the “friends” were enemies with each other.

Key words: Mongolian traitors, Mongolian cadres, collaborative nationalism, friendship, national boundaries

Introduction

In this paper, I suggest that since nationality cadres are so much implicated in questions oftreason or violation of national/nationality interest that we need to explore the “ethnopolitical” inChina. I will develop a new concept called collaborative nationalism, an analytical tool which I hope
can better capture the intricate issues at hand without privileging the standpoint of one party or theother. This will be done by examining the dialectical relationship between Mengjian (Mongolian

traitors) and Menggu Ganbu (Mongolian cadres) in the long 20th century, not to prove or disprove theequation of the two, but to discuss, through tracing their entangled genealogical trajectory,collaborative nationalism and its legacy as well as its implication for ethnic relations in today’s China.

Mengjian is of course not a self-reference, but a denunciative one used by the critics, whereas Menggu
Ganbu is a neutral term. I juxtapose these two terms, mindful of the position of theenunciators/denunciators. I treat both Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu as “super-signs”. A super-sign,
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according to Lydia Liu, “is not a word, but a hetereo-cultural signifying chain.”1

The Cunning of Ethnic Recognition

In the wake of the Japanese invasion of China, Inner Mongolian nationalism came to pose acredible threat to the inchoate Republic of China’s territorial sovereignty, not because of Mongols’ own
physical strength vis-à-vis China, but because of the Japanese support, based on claims of mutual
cultural and even biological affinity. Mongols were particularly responsive to the Japanese overture,seeing Japan as a possible deterrent to the aggressive Chinese colonization of the Mongolian land.2 To
the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD), the Mongol cooperation with the Japanese neverconstituted Mongol nationalism in its own right, but treason. The GMD Chinese denounced Prince
Demchugdonrub (Prince De), the most prominent Inner Mongolian nationalist, and his fellow
Mongolian supporters, as Hanjian.3

Hanjian is a moral concept condemning the Han Chinese who collaborated with enemies ofChina, carrying the overtones not just of treachery but negation of Chineseness on the collaborators.
Both the GMD and the CCP Chinese treated them as wicked people, not unlike witches, carrying out
operations to assassinate them. Obviously, the designation of the Mongol nationalists as Hanjian
reveals not necessarily the real nature of the Mongol behavior, but the Chinese national morality and,more importantly, the peculiar Chinese nationalist imagination of China’s nationscape.
In response to the Japanese attempt at reordering the regional world order, shifting thegalactic center from China to Japan, with the possible demise of China as a state, the GMD, having
newly assumed national power in 1927/8, radically re-envisioned China from a Five Race Republic(wuzu gonghe) to a single homogenous Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu), a vision eventuallyenshrined in Jiang Jieshi’s China’s Destiny published in 1943. In this revanchist imagination,
non-Chinese peoples were no longer recognized as having separate ethnic identities, but were
genealogically linked with the Han Chinese to form a single Chinese nation. The term Hanjian was,in the GMD usage, therefore, not reserved to the Han Chinese alone, but covered Mongols and Hui
Muslims, Taiwanese, as well as Manchu, without making any ethnic distinction. In an article
published in 1940, arguably the GMD’s best assessment of the Mongol princes, the author lambasted
them for not being good descendants of Chinggis Khan:
These utterly unworthy persons have committed crimes against the Chinese nation(Zhonghua minzu), they are the disobedient descendants of Chinggis Khan, and they havebecome real Hanjian; their crimes are beyond pardon, even death would not expiate all theircrimes. In accordance with the national law or morality, they deserve capital punishment, as
they have already been abandoned by all the people of the country.4

1 Lydia H. Liu 2004. The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making. Cambridge, Mass.

and London: Harvard University Press, p. 13.

2 From the Japanese perspective, they were Tainichi kyôryokusha, that is, people who collaborated with Japan.

3 The fact Mongol collaborators were denounced as Hanjian, but not as Zhonghua minzu jian, suggests theenormous appeal of Han as the core of Zhonghua minzu. In other words, Mongols became a member of theZhonghua minzu only through negativity, i.e. betraying the Han, who they were not even in the most radical
formulation of the day.
4 De Hengshan 1981 [1940]. “Kangri de Menggu.” In Zhonghua Minzu Zhongyao Shiliao Chubian Bianji

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Unlike the GMD, the CCP, however, did not call them Hanjian, but Mengjian – Mongolian

traitors. The CCP Central Committee’s first core slogan in Inner Mongolia was “Down with Mengjian
Prince De!” raised in June 1937.5
There is something very uncanny about this designation. Why did the CCP Chinese
denounce Mongol nationalists for treason against the Mongol nation? After all, the CCP advocated theprimacy of non-Chinese identities and their self-determination in its early years. The devil is perhaps
in the historical details. Contra many scholars who believe that the CCP changed its support forminority self-determination in 1949 after it came to power, in actual fact, the CCP’s nationality policy
underwent several stages, each modification shaped by their experiences in dealing with the
non-Chinese peoples, finally culminating in the adoption of official Chinese nationalism during the
war against Japan. Perhaps the most radical change of heart came as it retreated from supporting
minority self-determination, and imputed negativity to minority nationalism by calling it parochialnationalism (xiayi minzu zhuyi),6 effectively rendering non-Chinese nationalism internal to China.
Fundamental to this revisionism was a spatial change of the CCP’s mission – from world revolution to
defending a geographically bounded China. The existential experiences of the excruciatingly brutal
war for the survival of China led the CCP to re-imagine China’s “international” political order, adding
an internal ethnic frontier problem to the threat from external enemy. The CCP’s new treatment ofMongol nationalism as “internal” to China converged largely with the GMD’s stance, but differedradically in their diagnosis of the cause of Mongol nationalism and the solution to it.

I argue that the denunciation of Mongolian collaborators as Mengjian was part and parcel of

the CCP’s struggle against the GMD’s non-recognition of the Mongols; it was a struggle not for an
unconditional emancipation of the Mongols, but a strategy to win the Mongols over to China from theJapanese control. Thus, for instance, in its most comprehensive policy-oriented research written in
the early 1940s, the CCP made scathing criticisms of the GMD’s non-recognition policy for alienating
the Mongols from China, saying that it “forcefully pushed Inner Mongolia’s Mongolian nationality into
the fold of the Japanese invaders.” 7 The CCP, however, refrained from calling for theirself-determination, because it believed that autonomy or independence movement would only help
both the GMD and the Japanese.

Mengjian was thus the best embodiment of the CCP’s struggle for ethnic recognition, notprescribing Mongols’ independence from China, but in fact proscribing it by a double strategy. In thisscheme, Mongols, grateful for being recognized as a nationality (minzu), would be centripetal to China,

and as a domestic(cated) nationality, they would be subject to witchcraft accusation of committing jian– treason – the most heinous crime, should they collaborate with China’s enemy – Japan. The CCP’s
recognition was, therefore, appropriative recognition.

The CCP’s Mengjian discourse or its appropriative recognition was predicated on

Weiyuanhui (ed.). Zhonghua Minzu Zhongyao Shiliao Chubian – Dui Ri Kangzhan Shiqi: Di liu bian: Kuilei
Zuzhi (2). Taibei: Zhongguo Guomindang Zhongyang Weiyuanhui Dangshi Weiyuanhui, p. 328.
5 “Zhonggong Zhongyang Shaoshu Minzu Weiyuanhui Mengminbu Guanyu Muqian Suimeng Xinshi yu Womende Renwu he Gongzue, 1937, 6.” In Nei Menggu Tongzhan Shi: Dang’an Shiliao Xuanbian, vol. 1, p. 126.
6 Liu Xiaoyuan 2004. Frontier Passages: Ethnopolitics and the Rise of Chinese Communism, 1921-1945.
Washington D.C. and Stanford: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Stanford University Press.
7 Minzu Wenti Yanjiyhui 1993. Menggu Minzu Wenti. Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe, p. 26.
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acknowledging, curiously, the Mongolian agency. According to Frederic Wakeman Jr.,8 Hanjian werecharacterized by their antagonists as feminine, weak, passive, as opposed to masculine, strong, andactive resistance heroes. Following this logic, calling Prince De Hanjian or puppet was meant to deny
any subjectivity and agency to Prince De and Mongols and, moreover, to deny legitimacy to Mongolian
nationalism. However, in wartime China, according to Wakeman Jr., Chinese collaborators werecommitted to a larger cause, one initiated by Sun Yatsen, and then taken up by the Japanese, i.e.

pan-Asianism. And that commitment and its articulation constituted the Hanjian’s agency, which wasparticularly threatening to the GMD which was committed to a more narrowly defined national

identity. The Chinese abhorrence at Hanjian was really a fear of Chinese pan-Asianists forinadvertently assisting Japanese imperialism to conquer China.

Unlike Hanjian, Mongol collaborators were not committed to a pan-Asianist cause, but toMongolian nationalism, which was a threat to China in a different way: instead of encompassing
China, Mongolian nationalism threatened to secede from it. Mongolian nationalists were equippedwith a strong agency, which did not always make them good collaborators. In 1936 Prince De
specifically replied to a Chinese journalist called Zhao Chizi, arguing against the Chinese accusationof him of being a puppet:
Everyone says that I am pro-Japan, and also says that I will definitely become a puppet of
the Japanese. Chizi, please think honestly: do the Japanese, being so clever, really want me
to be puppet? The first qualification for a puppet is to be muddle-headed, but I am notnecessarily muddle-headed; and the second is to be submissive, but I am not always
obedient. People all say that I have ambitions, and I also take upon myself to accomplish
something, so even the Japanese also say I am too ambitious. So how can an ambitious
person like me be qualified for the job of a puppet?
Chizi refused to believe Prince De’s words about his nationalist agency, and insisted that“although not subjectively pro-Japanese, objectively he is already pro-Japanese.…One more soldier
for Prince De is one more soldier for Japan, one more weapon is one more addition to Japan; his
so-called Mongolian nationalism is the best theory for Japan to prop up a Mongolian state.”9Setting aside Chizi’s skepticism, we may more accurately characterize Prince De’s
nationalism “collaborative nationalism”. Timothy Brook recently formulated a notion called“collaborationist nationalism” to describe the war-time Japan-sponsored Chinese collaborationist
regimes.10 He argued that the collaborators’ self-justification for their action should not be dismissed
outright. They felt they were morally superior to the self-claimed resistance fighters, because thelatter’s ineffective resistance or even retreat exposed the Chinese people and the nation to extreme
8 Frederic Wakeman Jr. 2000. “Hanjian (Traitor)! Collaboration and Retribution in Wartime Shanghai.” In

Wen-Hsin Yeh (ed.) Becoming Chinese: Passages to Modernity and Beyond. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
9 “Junweihui Bangongting wei Chaosong Zhao Chizi Baogao De Wang yu Riben Goujie Yaoxiw Zhongyang Deng
Shi Zhi Meng Zang Weiyuanhui Gonghan.” Zhonghua Minguo Shi Dang’an Ziliao Huibian. Zhengzhi: Minzu
Shiwu, pp. 131-134.
10 Timothy Brook 2000. “Collaborationist Nationalism in Occupied Wartime China.” In Timothy Brook andAndre Schmid (eds.) Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan

136Friendship, Treason, and the Concept of the Ethnopolitical in China

danger and suffering. “Collaboration was for them a desperate response to the most severe crisis that
the Chinese nation had ever suffered. What they did, in their own eyes, they did for China, not forJapan, despite the apparent loss of sovereignty that this arrangement entailed, because they
conceived of that loss as temporary” (p. 160). Brook saw such collaboration as a special kind ofnationalism that is “a historically specific form of late colonial ideology that is always bound to declare
independence under a condition of dependence” (p. 163).
Prince De’s nationalism shares much similarity with the “collaborationist nationalism”
described by Brook, but they differ on one crucial account. Whereas the Chinese collaborators justified
their action in the name of saving their nation, thereby emphasizing their tragic heroism, Mongol
collaboration was unabashedly both collaborative and nationalistic. Their nationalism was notagainst the Japanese, as the Chinese nationalism was, but against the Chinese. In other words,
whereas the Chinese “collaborationist nationalism” worked in dyadic relation, collaborating with theevil for the sake of self-salvation, the Mongolian “collaborative nationalism” operated in a triangular
relationship, collaborating with the Japanese as “friend”, against the Chinese – their common“enemy”. Not surprisingly, some GMD Chinese acknowledged Prince De’s nationalist agency, andwere not opposed to Mongol nationalism per se, but apprehended its possible appropriation by China’s
enemy – Japan. Even the CCP, which categorically opposed the Chinese collaborationist regimes,
looked favorably on Prince De’s collaborative nationalism, hoping to harness this Mongolian
nationalist energy, seeing it as a possible wedge they could drive between the Mongols and theJapanese and the GMD.
On July 10, 1937 the CCP Center made a fundamental shift in its policy towards Prince De,changing its slogan from “Down with Mengjian Prince De” to “Demanding Prince De to resist theJapanese”.11 Some of the important justifications were: 1. Prince De had relatively strong national

consciousness in the face of the Great Han chauvinism, and had once represented the will of theMongolian national independence and liberation. But he became a puppet because he was lured by
the Japanese invaders and was driven by the GMD government. 2. He commanded relatively wide
support among the Mongolian nation, 3. “He is now a Japanese puppet, but since he has relatively
strong national consciousness, he has not become completely like Yin Rugen and Pu Yi.”12

Sworn Brothers and Menggu Ganbu

In 1926, Mao Zedong made a famous analysis of the classes in Chinese society and spelt out

the CCP’s strategy for victory. “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of thefirst importance for the revolution. The basic reason why all previous revolutionary struggles in China
achieved so little was their failure to unite with real friends in order to attack real enemies.”13 Mao’s
theory shares affinity that of Carl Schmitt, Hitler’s theoretician. In his best known book, The Concept
Press, pp. 159-190.
11 “Zhonggong Zhongyang Guanyu Menggu Gongzuo de Zhishixing, 1937, 7, 10.” (CCP Center’s Directive Letteron the Mongolian Work, July 10, 1937). In Zhonggong zhongyang tongzhanbu (ed.) Minzu Wenti Wenxian
Huibian: 1921,7 - 1949, 9. Beijing: Zhonggong Zhongyang Dangxiao Chubanshe, p. 546.
12 Yin was the head of the “Yidong Prevent-the-Communist Autonomous Government” established under the
auspices of the Japanese in 1935. Pu Yi was the emperor of Manchukuo.
13 Mao Zedong 1967. “Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society, March 1926.” In Selected Works of Mao
Tse-tung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, vol. 1, p. 13.
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of the Political first published in 1927, Schmitt argued that “the political” lies in distinguishing
between friend and enemy, a decision in which one must not only clarify one’s stand, but more
importantly one’s identity. For the political decision has to be made when confronted with the realpossibility of war or physical killing, “in clear knowledge of one’s own situation, defined by thatpossibility; and in the task of rightly distinguishing between friend and enemy.”14

Thus the CCP decision to suspend calling Prince De and other collaborators Mengjian was apolitical decision, reflecting not the CCP’s ideological commitment, but its own strategic calculation forsurvival. Weak and marginal, as well as illegitimate in China, the CCP’s friendly overture to Prince
De and his co-nationalists was meant to win over the Mongols to its own side. However, initially the
CCP made little headway in this direction, because Inner Mongolian aristocrats and Buddhist monks
had genuine fears of communists, in light of the violent revolutionary activities in the Mongolian
People’s Republic (MPR) targeting aristocrats and lamas. Even in the Ordos region, the only GMD
controlled Mongol area, a CCP report in 1939 found that “the Japanese have been quite successful inluring the Mongols; the majority of the Mongols’ attitude is unclear, even pro-Japan.”15
It was in this situation that the CCP decided to cultivate their own Mongolian friends(Menggu pengyou) to penetrate the Mongol society. The CCP’s Mongolian friends were not justanybody, but people who had had strong consciousness of one’s own identity vis-à-vis enemy. The

worst possible situation was lack of unconsciousness, because people of such kind could become theinstrument of enemy, as Hangjian were thought to be. The CCP was prepared, thus, to cultivate andwork with, if possible lead what they called Mongolian “xianjue fenzi” (early awakened elements) intheir common opposition against Japan.
Throughout its Yan’an sojourn, the only substantial Mongol group the CCP had contact with
were the Mongols in Ordos, the CCP’s immediately northern neighbor, from where they acquired
much needed salt and war horses, often by trickery or by force.16 To the majority of the Ordos
Mongols, they were no different from other Chinese, especially traders, who were known to be “jalhai”(treacherous).17 In addition to the CCP, Ordos Mongols faced pressure from the Japanese and PrinceDe’s Mongolian government from the north in Baotou, and more heavily, the GMD forces that had
physically occupied Ordos. In 1941 the GMD sent twenty-thousand troops commanded by Cheng
Changjie to garrison the region and flooded it with Chinese agents to closely monitor the Ordos
Mongols, the CCP and the Japanese. This was the last Mongolian frontier, so all these external forces
jostled to befriend the Ordos Mongols to their own end. Collaboration or cooperation was a necessity
for all these groups. Treason or treachery was a normal behavior, rather than an aberration.
The CCP operatives in Ordos initially found the Mongols “backward” in national

consciousness and “inconstant” (fanfu wuchang). Soon realizing that their “inconstancy” was causedby their calculation of cost and benefit and “interethnic divide”, the CCP decided to turn this to their
14 Quoted in Heinrich Meier 1995. Carl Schmitt & Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue. Chicago: the University of

Chicago Press, pp. 15-6.

15 “Zhao Tongru Guanyu Yimeng Dang Lingdao Jiguan nei suo fasheng wenti de baogao, 1939”. Yimeng Shijian

Ziliao Huibian, Vol. 1. 1985. Nei Menggu Yikezhaomeng Dang’an’guan, p. 112 (unofficial publication).

16 In 1936, in an effort to win over the good feelings of the Mongols, the CCP helped return the salt lakes in the

Otog banner controlled by the Muslims and Chinese. But a few years later, realizing the value of the salt, the
CCP army attacked the Mongol banner self-defense forces and controlled the salt lakes.
17 In Qing documents, Chinese traders in Mongolia were often denounced as “jian shang” (treacherous

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own advantage. Zhao Tongru, the CCP’s main operative in Ordos concluded in 1939 that “It is an
undeniable fact that the Mongols would sacrifice anything for their friends, for the collective interests,
loyal to a fault.”18 The main method of the CCP to penetrate the Mongols would then be to become

sworn friends or brothers (bazi or jiebai in local Chinese, anda in Mongolian) with Mongol officials or

soldiers individually, taking advantage of the Mongols’ loyalty to ritual friends. Determined to change
the Mongol impression of jianshang (treacherous traders), the CCP operatives began to pose as fairtraders, and sent as gifts to their “Mongol friends” large quantities of opium which was grown by the

CCP in its controlled southern Ordos. Soon, the CCP had cultivated a lot of Menggu pengyou(Mongolian friends), some of whom were later recruited as the CCP’s Menggu ganbu – Mongoliancadres.
1940 saw a radical change in the CCP’s strategy towards the Mongols. As China was losing
ground and the Japanese further consolidating their control of Inner Mongolia and North China, the

CCP Center issued a new instruction on what was called “Mongolian Work” (Menggu Gongzuo)
proposing a three-pronged strategy: 1. Recruit and foster guerrilla forces with Mongols as core
members. This guerrilla force would serve as a “flag to call on and unite the broad masses of theMongols” against Japan, and the CCP in Suiyuan must “by all means help it politically andorganizationally in the areas of cadres and military equipments”. 2. The ethnic Chinese cadres should
abandon their own open anti-Japanese organizations, and go underground by penetrating all
legitimate organizations in the Japanese occupied region. “In the course of work in the banners of
Chahar, Wumeng [Ulanchab league], and Lemeng [Silinggol league], [Chinese cadres] must find all

kinds of connections, and develop core Party members within various organizations (tuanti), andestablish key points of support.” 3. Particularly important is the instruction on how to foster Menggu

ganbu:The Party from now on must foster core anti-Japanese elements, which means in more
concrete terms training and fostering the Party’s Menggu ganbu, preparing therevolutionary core elements in the Mongolian nation to establish Mongolian nationalanti-Japanese organizations. For now [we] must absorb progressive Mongols (meng min) tojoin various anti-Japanese governments. There are two main methods to foster the Party’s

Menggu ganbu: the first is to foster and train the progressive elements within the Mongols,
and the other is to train [Chinese] party members appropriate for the Mongolian work to

become Mongols (jiaru Menggu ji). 19 In addition to training them within the localorganizations, [we] must absorb large numbers of Mongolian people to get training in
Yan’an.20
In 1941 a nationality institute was set up to train Mongolian, Hui and other minority cadres.
merchants).
18 “Zhao Tongru Guanyu Yimeng Dang Lingdao Jiguan nei suo fasheng wenti de baogao, 1939”. Yimeng Shijian
Ziliao Huibian, Vol. 1. 1985. Nei Menggu Yikezhaomeng Dang’an’guan, pp. 120-121 (unofficial publication).
19 Before 1949, one was a Mongol if one was subject to a Mongolian banner, registered as a tax bearing subject(albat) of the banner government.
20 Zhonggong Zhongyang Guanyu Menggu Gongzuo de Zhishi, 1940. In Nei Menggu Tongzhan Shi: Dang’an
Shiliao Xuanbian, vol. 1. p. 199.
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In order to foster good will and to change their political orientation at the same time, the CCP set up a
Chinggis Khan Memorial in Yan’an as early as 1939 and brought many Ordos Mongols to tour Yan’an,impressing them that the CCP venerated the Mongols’ ancestor Chinggis Khan. Many ethnic Chinese
CCP operatives joined the Mongolian banner garrison corps or the Suiyuan Province Mongolian
Political Council based in Ordos.

This CCP tactic was essentially the same as the Japanese Mongolian Work (Môko Kôsaku)or Inner Mongolian Work, that is, penetrating and controlling the western part of Inner Mongolia.
The Japanese Kwantong army, for instance, sent numerous agents to serve as advisors, andcultivated friendship with Mongolian princes and officials. Large numbers of Japanese monks trainedin eastern Mongolian monasteries were dispatched to western Inner Mongolia disguised as
Mongolian lamas.21 Similarly, they trained Mongolian army, and took many Mongol leaders andstudents to Japan to impress them with Japan’s splendor of modernity.

Menggu Ganbu against Mengjian: Revolutionary Terrorism

By the early 1940s, the CCP had successfully created their own Menggu Ganbu (Mongoliancadres). As we have seen, Menggu Ganbu and Mengjian are two categories of people, which came into
being at the same time as they were invented, and they opened up new possibilities for action.22 The
two invented categories took on life of their own, and assumed mutually antagonistic roles. Initially,
as we have noted, they were opposed to each other only indirectly, differing in their stance towards theJapanese, GMD and CCP, but they were not yet at each other’s throat as the Chinese cadres wereagainst Hanjian. This would soon change, as Menggu Ganbu, following the CCP Center’s instruction,

took a categorically oppositional stand against Mengjian.

The Japanese surrender in 1945 did not immediately put an end to the political future ofInner Mongolia, as it exposed Taiwanese to the Chinese justice. Prince De and many of his former
associates went over to rework with their former enemy GMD government, and the Mongols ineastern Inner Mongolia also sought to seek a legitimate autonomy from the GMD government after ashort euphoria of possible unification with the MPR. Moreover, the CCP and the GMD turned again
into animosity after a brief fragile wartime United Front, with Inner Mongolia and Manchuria
becoming the crucial contesting ground between the two. Neither Prince De’s embracement of the
GMD nor the eastern Mongolian desire for unification with the MPR was welcome to the CCP.
In October 1945, two months after the war, the CCP Center issued a new directive on its
Mongolian Work, this time instructing its operatives to specifically carry out propaganda among all
strata of Mongols, exposing the GMD’s and the Japanese “deceitful and criminal rule of Inner
Mongolia historically,” so as to “eliminate the Mongols’ fantasy towards the GMD”. It also instructed
to attack Prince De’s faction, and isolate it to “quickly destroy its influence [among the Mongols], so as
to prevent the GMD from using them in the future.” More specifically, it called on promoting andfostering local Menggu Ganbu in various league and banner autonomous governments to “expose

Mengjian”. What is particularly interesting is the specific instruction that “all the work of executing
21 Japanese lamas usually obtained native fluency in Mongolian after long time stay in Mongolian monasteries
in eastern Inner Mongolia and were then sent to western Inner Mongolia.
22 Ian Hacking 1986. “Making Up People”. In Thomas C. Heller, Morton Sosna, and David E. Wellby (Eds.)
Reconstructing Individualism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, p. 231.

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and punishing the Mengjian and confiscating the property of the Mengjian must be carried out by the
Mongols.”23

The measures the Menggu Ganbu took toward the Mengjian are akin to what Jeff Goodwin

calls “revolutionary terrorism.”24 Goodwin defines revolutionary terrorism as “the strategic use ofviolence and threats of violence by a revolutionary movement against civilians or noncombatants, andis usually intended to influence several audiences.” Revolutionaries do not attack just any civilians or
noncombatants indiscriminately, but target certain categories of people. Goodwin suggests
revolutionaries typically threaten and attack what he refers to as “complicitous civilians”, categories ofcivilians who are viewed by revolutionaries as “complicitous insofar as they are believed to (1)routinely benefit from the actions of the government or state that the revolutionaries oppose, (2)support the government or state, and/or (3) have a substantial capacity to influence or to direct the

government or state.” What complicates the matter is that revolutionaries make strategic decisions toeither attack or not to attack complicitous civilians, for although considered collaborators of the enemy,complicitous civilians may also be potential members or allies of the revolutionary movement. Thus
the decision to attack them also hinge on calculations of costs and benefits, determining whether
terrorism will be effective in achieving the goals revolutionaries desire, namely whether thecomplicitous civilians would be compelled to move closer to or away from the enemy. Goodwin’s theoryis also helpful in grasping the revolutionaries’ understanding of the political order that they confront
and the complicitous civilians associated with, as well as the strategically calculated measures taken
against them.
Pitted against each other, the post-war history witnessed Mongols waging a fratricidal war,with many who sided with the GMD being killed for being Mengjian by the Menggu Ganbu. In 1946,

Jamyangsharav, a reincarnate lama who was a de facto ruler of the Otog banner in Ordos, wasassassinated by his subordinates who were underground CCP members and Menggu Pengyou of theChinese CCP operatives. On a wider scale, the post-war history indeed witnessed Ulanhu and his

fellow Menggu Ganbu from Yan’an valiantly fighting Mengjian, dismantling several pro-MPR or
pro-GMD Mongolian autonomous administrations, and setting up an Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Government in 1947.
This new autonomous government was, according to the government’s political program, an“integral part of the Republic of China,” but opposed to Great Han chauvinism and the GMD
government. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Government was thus not a constitutionallyautonomous government, but what may be called a morally autonomous government, autonomous or
independent of the “enemy” – the GMD because they were Han Chauvinists, but under theleadership of the “friend” – the CCP, because they advocated equality between nationalities.25
23 “Zhonggong Zhongyang dui Nei Meng Gongzuo de Yijian gei Jinchaji Zhongyangju he Jinsui Fenju Dian: 1945
nian 10 yue 23 ri.” In Zhonggong Nei Menggu Zizhiqu Weiyuanhui Tongzhanbu/Nei Menggu ZizhiquDang’an’guan (eds.) 1987. Nei Menggu Tongzhan Shi: Dang’an Shiliao Xuanbian, vol. 1, p. 278 (internal
publication).
24 Jeff Goodwin 2005. “Understanding Revolutionary Terrorism.” Paper presented at the conference on
Revolution, Class and Modernity. King’s College, Cambridge, UK, 1-2 April.
25 Immediately after the founding of the autonomous government, the delegates of the founding congress sent
their gratitude to Mao Zedong and Zhu De, referring to them deferentially as Chairman Mao (Mao Zhuxi) andCommander-in-Chief Zhu (Zhu Zongsiling):

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To certain extent, the Menggu Ganbu’s revolutionary terrorism against what they believed to

be Mengjian reflected perhaps what Carl Schmitt characterizes as the most insidious aspect ofimperialism: “A people is only then primarily defeated, when it is subjected to a foreign vocabulary, toa foreign conception regarding what is right, especially what is international right.”26 In other words,

the latest round of Mengjian-bashing, carried out whether by the CCP or by the Menggu Ganbu
themselves, led to an interesting parallel of heightened ethnic recognition and drastic reduction ofInner Mongolian autonomy, marking the increasing Chinese sovereign “right” to the internal(lized)
ethnic frontier.

Agency, Collaborative Nationalism and the Politics of Friendship
A superficial study of the records of the Menggu Ganbu, as outlined above, might give theimpression that they were no more than ethnically uniformed lackeys of the CCP. It has often been
whispered that Ulanhu delivered Inner Mongolia to China. Indeed, as I demonstrated elsewhere,27
post-revolutionary Inner Mongolian historiography and CCP evaluations of Ulanhu often highlight
his heroic struggle with Mongolian nationalists-cum-Mengjian.

What is interesting is that neither the Mongol denunciation nor the Chinese celebration of

Ulanhu and Menggu Ganbu deny Ulanhu’s agency. In fact, the reason that Ulanhu became such an
iconic/ironic figure is precisely the strong agency he exercised, that is, his own understanding of theplace of Inner Mongolia in the wider Inner Asian frontier of both the Soviet Union/Mongolia andChina, and his struggle to achieve that. Even the CCP acknowledged Ulanhu’s nationalist agency.

Indeed, insofar as Menggu Ganbu were the CCP’s mirror image of Mengjian, and that Mengjian wereacknowledged by the CCP to have strong agency, their agency or national consciousness was theprecondition for the CCP’s recruitment. Where such agency lacked, the CCP would educate them todevelop it. As noted above, the CCP, in its fight against the Japanese, were looking for “early
conscious” or “progressive” Mongols.
The prior existence of the “progressive” or “early conscious” elements in Inner Mongolia
points to an early history of communism and nationalism in Inner Mongolia. Indeed, in 1925 an Inner
Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (IMPRP) was established with the support of the Comintern,
the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and the GMD.28 Those early Mongolian members of theWe express our heart-felt gratitude to you from afar, with incomparable enthusiasm. For the past threehundred years, the Mongolian nationality has been oppressed by the Great Han Chauvinism, the pain of
which is beyond description. Only the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army led by
you have thoroughly changed such an abnormal historical relationship, and with the spirit of real
nationality equality, greatly supported our Mongolian nation’s development and its total liberation… We
only want to express to you that we will definitely be able to follow your instruction, to maintain the unity
within the nationality, to unite with various nationalities of the whole country, to thoroughly smash theattacks of Chiang Kai-shek, and to struggle for the building of a peaceful democratic New China and New
Inner Mongolia. (Nei Menggu Zizhiqu Danh’an’guan 1989. Nei Menggu Zizhi Yundong Lianhehui Dang’an
Shiliao Huibian. Beijing: Dang’an Chubanshe, pp. 236-237.)
26 Quoted in Grigoris Ananiadis, “Carl Schmitt on Kosovo, or, Taking War Seriously.” In Dušan I. Bjeliþ andObrad Saviþ(eds.) Balkan as Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT
Press, pp. 138-139.
27 Uradyn E. Bulag 2006. “The Yearning for ‘Friendship’: Revisiting “the Political” in Minority Revolutionary
History in China”. The Journal of Asian Studies. Vol. 64, No. 1. February.
28 For a comprehensive study of the early activities of the Inner Mongolia People’s Revolutionary Party, see
Christopher Atwood 2002. Young Mongols and Vigilantes in Inner Mongolia’s Interregnum Decades, 1911-1931.
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CCP, who also joined the IMPRP, went to Moscow for training by the Comintern. Mongols in Ordos
formed the bulk of the IMPRP’s army. The IMPRP was pan-Mongolist and favored unification with
the MPR, a project undermined, however, by two successive events: the hostile turn of the GMD
against the CCP in 1928, and the Soviet-Mongolian opposition to Japanese imperialism in 1931-2.
Therefore, Mongol communists like Ulanhu acted independently of the CCP, but followed theComintern instruction, and waged their own underground anti-Japanese operations, often incollaboration with the GMD, which was now seen as lesser enemy than Japan. In the Japanese
occupied Manchuria, Mongol communists were in fact largely Soviet Communist Party members, andthis led to their petitioning to join the MPR immediately after the war.
The historical experiences and the geographical location, as well as the organizational
dimension of the Mongolian communists did not lead to the easy conclusion that they were simple
CCP lackeys. Indeed, they had their own revolutionary history, often in parallel to the CCP’s. It was
not until 1938 that the CCP discovered Ulanhu and invited him to Yan’an to meet Mao, and not until
1941 that a number of Tumed Mongol communists went over to Yan’an, when they could no longer
work within the GMD controlled Mongolian cavalry in Ordos. Ulanhu and the early Inner Mongolian
communists were thus typical collaborative nationalists. They were nationalists because they were
defending their Mongolian nation against enemies, and they did so by relying on external forces, bethey Comintern, the GMD, or the CCP. They went to Yan’an, not just because of the communist
international brotherhood, but also because of their judgment of the CCP Chinese as being “friends”
or “good Chinese”.

It should be clear by now that both Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu were collaborative

nationalists, exercising strong nationalist agency, distinguishing friends from enemies, relying on
friends to fight enemies. So was the CCP, as Mao’s strategy and the CCP’s operation in Inner
Mongolia demonstrated. To some extent, the Japanese were also collaborative, though they may becalled imperial nationalists. What resulted was a conglomeration of alliances established in opposition
to perceived enemies. These alliances or groupings of “friends” were predicated on their mutualinterests in opposition to common enemies. And importantly, national consciousness based on hatredtowards enemies was the foundation for such alliances or friendship. Insofar as this friendship wasderivative of enmity or enemies, the real question is what to do with the friendship after the originalenemies were gone.

Both Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu were confronted with these questions, partly because

they were the products of such collaborative nationalism, and they were nationally conscious, as wehave seen. Surprisingly, both Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu became hostile to the Japanese and theChinese CCP members, and the confrontations were often violent. Lin Sheng, a Daur-Mongolianaristocrat, who was instrumental in rallying the Mongolian support for the Manchukuo and was once
hailed as Chinggis Khan the second by the Japanese, soon became disillusioned at the Japanese, andwas eventually executed by the Japanese. In August 1945 large numbers of Mongolian soldiers in
Manchukuo killed their Japanese advisors upon the news of the Soviet-Mongolian declaration of war
against Japan. Even Prince De was deeply at odds with the Japanese, at one point contemplating to

Leiden and Boston: Brill.
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desert to the GMD side.29 As for Menggu Ganbu, their relationship with the CCP was no less stormy.

Large numbers of them were punished as landlords during the Land Reform in 1947-48, as Minzu

Youpai (nationality rightists) in 1958, and almost all the Mongolian CCP members were denounced assecessionists, Mengjian, and for committing other heinous crimes during the Cultural Revolution, awitch-hunt costing tens of thousands of lives. The Mongolian CCP members were accused not simply
of harboring evil thoughts against China and the Chinese, but suspected of being the undergroundmembers of an imaginary New Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, thereby having“organizational” structure in opposition to China.
How do we explain this inter-friend violence? I argue that a plausible answer should be found
not primarily in the logic of ethnic differences, but in how to deal with trust and friendship. As is seen
above, friendship or friendly overtures were central to the collaboration of two Mongol groups withJapan and the CCP respectively, and vice versa.
The most important element in any friendship is perhaps “trust”. According to Russel Hardin,
trust is an expression of “encapsulated interest”: “To say that I trust you with respect to some mattermeans that I have reason to expect you to act in my interest with respect to that matter because you
have good reasons to do so, reasons that are grounded in my interest.”30 In other words, your interest
encapsulates my interest. However, when one trusts, one also risks potential harm. “Where one
depends on another’s good will,” writes Annette Baier, “one is necessarily vulnerable to the limits ofthat good will. One leaves others an opportunity to harm one when one trusts, and also shows one’s
confidence that they will not take it.”31 Paradoxically, friendship, especially political friendship,
involves two parties with different identities, which enter into friendship out of their own interests,
and yet one expects the other to act in one’s own interest. Consequently, there are at least two
important elements in any friendship or solidarity pact: expectation and judgment.
There were important, oftentimes conflicting, differences in the expectation of friendship.

Mongols, either the so-called Mengjian or Menggu Ganbu, chose their Japanese or CCP friends in

opposition to chauvinism of the GMD or Chinese in general; therefore, equality with the Chinese
enemies was what they expected from their association with the Japanese or CCP friends, and theyalso expected to be treated as equals by their friends. Friendship was, for the Japanese and the CCP,
on the other hand, not for the purpose of “equality” with the Mongols, but of subordinating them into
their own sphere of control, taking advantage of the Mongols’ vulnerability. This latter friendship isdriven by desire of appropriation, reminiscent of Nietzsche’s insight: “Our love of our neighbor – is it
not a lust for new possessions?”32

Interestingly, the Japanese and the CCP’s lust for new possessions came through offering analternative to the Mongols. The Japanese insisted they were better than the Chinese, because thelatter were colonizing the Mongols. So did the CCP insist that they were better than either theJapanese or the GMD, who were, in the CCP’s language, intended to exterminate both the Mongols
Demuchukedunglupu 1984. Demuchukedonglupu zishu [Demchugdongrub in His Own Words]. Hohhot:
Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi Nei Menggu Zizhiqu weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao yanjiu weiyuanhui.
30 Russell Hardin 1999. “Do we want trust in government?” In Mark E. Warren (ed.) Democracy and Trust.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 26.
31 Annette Baier 1989. “Trust and antitrust.” Ethics 96, p. 235.
32 Quoted in Jacques Derrida 1997. Politics of Friendship. Trans. by George Collins. London and New York: Verso,
p. 65.
29

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and the Communists – fangong miemeng, whereas they alone were able to not only help Mongols
from such a miserable state, but also build a better society in which Mongols would suffer no moreand enjoy prosperity and equality with the Chinese.
Common to both the Japanese and the CCP strategies to win over the Mongols was notreally the promotion of lofty human principles of equality, freedom, democracy, but their being “better”
than their enemies. It might be a good strategy to win the heart of the Mongols, but it also became aburden to the Japanese and the CCP to prove in unequivocal terms that they were what they said tobe. In other words, they had subjected themselves to Mongol judgment. In concrete terms, in order towin over the Mongols, the Japanese and the CCP made some important promises, including
dismantling the Chinese provinces and counties established on Mongolian territories, returning
natural resources taken by the Chinese to their rightful Mongolian banners, and so on. These solemn
promises or oaths made at the friendship rituals may not be legally binding, but failures to deliver
them were, however, the best recipe for driving Mongolian indignation. “Half friendship is thebitterest enmity.”33

Mengjian and the Japanese, or Menggu Ganbu and the CCP had fundamental differences intheir vision regarding the place of the Mongolian minzoku or Mongolian minzu in the Japanese

empire or in China. Autonomy for the Japanese and the CCP was not an end itself, but a means tointegrate the Mongols into the Japanese empire or China. Autonomy was, as outlined above, nevermeant to be autonomous of the CCP, but the CCP’s enemy, who was supposed to be simultaneously
Mongols’ enemy. So was the Mongolian autonomy under the Japanese control. Such autonomy had its
own structural constraint, as it was necessitated by the existence of enemy. Its mission was over assoon as the enemy was extinguished, and so was that of Mengjian or Menggu Ganbu. Any continued
autonomy within the Manchukuo or the People’s Republic of China, where the former enemies were
eliminated, could no longer be justified without posing a moral affront to the Japanese or the CCP,
treating either as an enemy.

To be sure, some kind of autonomy might still be tolerated, and Mengjian or Menggu Ganbu

might still be needed, not because of the intrinsic goodness of such a polity or such categories of people,
but because of the existence of serious opposition within that nationality. The following instruction by
Mao Zedong on November 14, 1949 soon after “the Liberation” to train large numbers of minority
nationality cadres is emblematic of such reasoning: “In order to thoroughly solve the nationality
question, to totally isolate the nationality reactionaries, it is impossible without large numbers ofcommunist cadres of minority nationality origin.”34 These cadres were supposed to be the CCP’s
attack dogs unleashed to defeat any resistance of their nationalities to the new Chinese state.

The new role of Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu in what may be called “post-nationalist”

situation not as friends, but as subordinates, not to fight for autonomy from their former
friend-patrons, poses important questions for both parties of the friendship. It requires unwiring of all
the charged energy of national consciousness. It demands unarming of the nationality before the
33 William Blake, Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion, quoted in Derrida 1997, Politics of Friendship.
Trans. by George Collins. London and New York: Verso p. 73.
34 Mao Zedong 1999 [1949]. “Dapi Peiyang Shaoshu Minzu Ganbu 1949,11, 14”. Mao Zedong Wenji, vol.6.
(compiled by Zhonggong Zhongyang Wenxian Yanjiushi). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, p. 20.

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friends, and it means even the total collapse of the boundary between the former allies. Most
importantly, it means the demise of the nationality as an entity. This state of affairs is brought about
by both the logic of friendship and the logic of class struggle. In the latter logic, since nationalism isresistance to discrimination, inequality, and all the properties of enemy, now that enemy is gone, somust have those properties, hence the need to put a top to nationalism. Any refusal to comply withthis logic now constitutes “the nationality question,” for the CCP, as much for the Japanese.
But the prospect of the demise of a nationality in the hands of the friend, the moment it isliberated from the enemy, poses perhaps the most fundamental challenge to the collaborative
nationalists. This violence from the friend is more morally devastating than attacks from known
enemies, because it constitutes a profound sense of betrayal. We have already seen that Mengjian

were not hesitant to turn against their former friend Japanese when they saw a possible
emancipation from another, presumably better friends – the Soviet Union and the MPR. But Menggu

Ganbu did not enjoy that luxury of having another external friend. They were now an internalizedminority in China. Nonetheless, in the early 1950s they still had some leverage against the
CCP-China, not least because China needed Inner Mongolia as a model for other minorities who had
not been fully integrated into China.
The long and arduous struggle for Inner Mongolian liberation from enemies determined that

Menggu Ganbu had an entirely different understanding of what constituted the nationality questionor problem. Far from their demise as a nationality, they envisioned a better future and prosperity as anationality within a new China. That future must be based on justice, i.e. getting back what they had
lost to the Chinese, including the entire Inner Mongolian territory. They remembered the CCP’swartime solemn promises and then obliged the CCP Center to fulfill their promises. Whether or not
the CCP was willing to deliver what they had promised became the litmus’ test of whether the CCP
could prove whether they are really any better than the GMD.
This kind of autonomy based on justice was profoundly uncomfortable to the Chinese, whoalready constituted the majority there. To them, Inner Mongolian autonomy was not a matter ofleaving the Mongols alone to run their affairs, but reversing the power structures, putting theMongols on the leadership positions throughout Inner Mongolia. Indeed, the Chinese fear of theMongol backlash was so strong that Suiyuan province, for instance, refused to integrate with theInner Mongolia Autonomous Region until 1954, and when it finally buckled, the Suiyuan Chinese
CCP leadership raised the condition that the central government agree to create two administrative
prefectures – Pingdiquan and Hetao – as reserves for Han Chinese autonomy within the now Mongol
dominated unified Inner Mongolia.35

What all of this had achieved was to grant the Mongols, especially Menggu Ganbu to judge

the CCP in two areas: whether the CCP Chinese were really better than GMD Chinese; and whether
the CCP could transcend its own ethnocentrism and become truly universalistic. What is crucial inthis Mongolian judgment is that the CCP’s efforts to become universalistic, i.e. truncating autonomy

or reducing the number of Menggu Ganbu has been criticized precisely as a clear manifestation ofGreat Han chauvinism, the CCP behaving no differently if not worse than the GMD. Indeed,
35 Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan minzu yanjiusue minzu wenti lilun yanjiu shi (ed.), n.d. Woguo Minzu Quyu

Zizhi Wenxian Ziliao Huibian. Vol.3.1. Beijing: publisher unknown, pp.147-177.
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throughout the 1950s and the early 1960s, there had been a tug of war between Menggu Ganbu andthe CCP each accusing the other of being either “Great Han Chauvinists” or “Narrow Local
Nationalists.” In 1966-7 the tension finally exploded when the CCP determined that these twonationalisms were no longer contradictions among the people (renmin neibu maodun), but
contradictions between enemy and us (diwo maodun). The enmity between former friends wasperhaps stronger and more lethal than enmity between conventional enemies. As noted above, in
1968-9 Inner Mongolian cities, towns, and grassland were littered with tens of thousands of corpses,
many being those of Menggu Ganbu, who were incriminated as secessionists and/or Mengjian – thesuper-sign of the absolute enemy of the China-CCP.

Conclusion

It should be clear by now that Mengjian and Menggu Ganbu are a pair of alterity, but insofar

as they are opposed to each other, the enunciator or denunciator always expresses one’s own identity
as the defender of the Mongolian nation/nationality. What complicates the matter is that the defenseof the Mongolian nation could not be achieved by the Mongols alone, and they always have had to relyon an external power, (mis)recognizing it as a friend, not least because it presents itself as a friend.
The trouble with collaborative nationalism, notwithstanding its virtue, is that it is compromised notby its opposition to the enemy, but by the friendship that is derivative of the enemy. Once the enemy isgone, a collaborative nationalist feels that he is betrayed by the friend – usually a more powerful one
having its own calculation in entering the friendship – for not keeping the promises.
There is a profound irony and even tragedy in collaborative nationalism. It is ironic because it
violates the basic principle of nationalism as imbedded in group sovereignty, keeping itself from anyothers, be they friends or enemies. By aligning with a friendly power, collaborative nationalists close
the front door to enemies but open the back door to friends. It is tragic because nationalists, especiallythose of small and weak groups, could not accomplish their task by themselves not only because of the
sheer power asymmetry, but more importantly they themselves also subscribe to some of the best
ideas humanity has produced, that is, civilization, equality, fraternity, human rights,
nondiscrimination, which are ideas that transcend national boundaries. Nationalism is never anaspiration to shut one’s door to do whatever one likes, but is informed by an aspiration for having thefreedom to enjoy those universal goods which are presumed to be enjoyed by independent nations. In
other words, nationalism is a box wrapped with national skin, filled with desirable objects or ideas
which come from outside, and which are universal. Nationalism is prone to collaboration with“friends”.
Thus, universalism is the double-edged sword, serving both to bolster nationalist closure andto crack open the boundary to align with like-minded nations or powers. Universal ideals are thefoundation of any nationalism, enabling nationalists of weak groups to seek external supports,
thereby rendering their nationalism collaborative or their collaboration active.
Prasenjit Duara36 has rightly pointed out the intricate relationship between imperialism andcivilization, the latter serving imperialism to establish political domination by transcending
36 Prasenjit Duara 2003. Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern. Lanham:

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

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nationalism. Uday Singh Mehta similarly argues that imperialism stemmed from liberalism, which isa set of ideas committed to political rights, the limited authority of the state, and self-determination.37
Indeed, the recent formulations such as eco-imperialism and human rights imperialism, moral
imperialism all echo Proudhon’s claim which was frequently quoted by Carl Schmitt to critiquewestern liberalism: “Whoever says humanity, wants to deceive.”38
What we have seen is that universal principles and ideals become tools of both nationalism
and imperialism, and they form the basis of collaboration or friendship between the two. They become
friends because there is a common enemy, whatever it may be. Politically, what is most problematic is
not perhaps the opposition between friends and enemies, but how to deal with the friendship forged in
opposition to their common enemy, especially after the enemy is defeated. It is the failure to solve thatfriendship by the Japanese and Mongol nationalists like Prince De that afforded the opponents, even
Mongol communists, to call the active Mongol collaborators Mengjian. It is the betrayal of friendshipby the CCP forcing Menggu Ganbu to become mere servants of the Party’s sovereignty over the

Mongols that enabled their Mongol critics to denounce Menggu Ganbu as Mengjian. My point is,however, that such accusations do not capture the nature of the so-called Mongol treason, and I haveargued that these activities are symptomatic of collaborative nationalism. This analysis does notprivilege the enunciators of the super-sign, for they do so by relying on alternative, and presumably
better, more virtuous, friends.

37 Uday Singh Mehta 1999. Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
38 Jan-Werner Müller 2003. A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought. New Haven andLondon: Yale University Press, p. 25.

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